Cake Week- Recipe 1- The Madeira Cake

Well over half of the time, we've never even heard of the items on the show, let alone tasted them. And really, that's the main impetus for attempting to make all of this. We want to know what in the world these items taste like. So of course, we start off strong with something I've never heard of and couldn't spell. Thank heavens for Google. Luckily, the BBC is generous enough to provide recipes from each of the tasks set before the bakers and so we chose the Zingy Citrus Mederia Cake from Marie.

Obstacle #1- I've never heard of these ingredients before.

Will I be able to get this at my local store? I live in rural central Illinois. We have a Wal-mart and a Kroger in the next town, and to have a chance at any truly specialty ingredients, my best bets are all at least a 45 minute drive away. This first task doesn't have as many strange ingredients as the next two (more on those when we get there) but I've still never heard of caster sugar and I figure icing sugar will be easy enough... a cake shop will have that, right?

I do a little digging and realize that caster sugar is just superfine sugar- readily available locally but in small amounts, but I'll make do. Good. And icing sugar? It's just powdered sugar/ confectioner's sugar. Really? We speak the same language and I'm already sort of annoyed that we can't call ingredients the same thing.

Now, I've got all of my ingredients.

Obstacle #2-Conversions!

Everything is measured in weight instead of volume like I'm used to. There is a simple enough solution to this, buy a food scale. I do, from Amazon for about $13. When I start to actually bake, though, it's going to take a little getting used to.

And the oven. I have only a knob for setting the temperature on my oven and so I can't get it accurately to 356 degrees Fahrenheit which Google calculates as my baking temp. Cue me setting it at 350 and hoping for the best.

The Baking Begins

SETTING- MY VERY MESSY, ORIGINAL 1970'S KITCHEN

I begin to gather everything and realize very quickly that I have wax paper, not parchment paper-- ok, no biggie, I'll just grease the pan extra. And that even though the recipe says nothing about softening or setting out the butter, I should have. Do the Brits not put their butter in the fridge? Doesn't it get gross? So this makes mixing the sugar and butter take much longer and much more effort than it should. Lesson learned for next time. Also, as mentioned above, I have to weigh my ingredients. Since I have no experience with this, it's going to take me a while to get used to having any sort of conception of what 150 grams of something looks like. Is it a lot? A little? There's a lot of measuring and remeasuring that occurs.

Otherwise, creating the batter is not a big deal. I make my first attempt at zesting citrus. I didn't cut myself, so I count that as success.

Cake in the Oven

Time to do laundry and wash the large stacks of dishes you've doubtless noticed. That is, until I burn my finger taking dishes off of my hot stove. Good job, Nichole. Back to laundry.

The recipe says to check at 40 minutes to make sure the top isn't too brown. It already is. Is my conversion wrong? No, it checks out. A toothpick stuck in the middle comes out clean... It has only a very small crack in the top. Why is my cake ready 20 minutes early? Oh well. I'm taking it out. It's going to cook more in the tin, which the recipe specifically says to keep it in at this point, so I'm NOT risking this.

Making Syrup

Now this is something I've done before. I made a syrupy coating for popcorn for my son's birthday once. It worked out that first time, but when I tried it again to make treats for my scholastic bowl kids, it burned. So I'm 50-50 on my syrup making skills.

I put my ingredients in the pan and wait and wait and wait. The five minutes in the recipe pass and I still have pure liquid. It doesn't look anything like syrup.

I wait. My cake was done early... my syrup takes too long. It finally gets a thicker consistency so I put it on the cake.

The Icing on the Cake

I let the cake cool and move on to the icing. It's the easiest part of the recipe and the stickiest. I'd had a very difficult time cutting "very thin" strips of my citrus and so I ended up juicing individual attempts at slices. After fishing a few seeds out that made it through my unsuccessful hand sieve, I have my icing to pour over my cake and voila-- challenge #1 complete.

The Verdict?

I don't really like the taste of oranges so I don't really like it. Aaron says it tastes good. Ben won't try it. It is nice and moist, but it's also sticky-- something the show says it should not be. The small crack I had in the top has all but disappeared. My citrus does end up making a light clink when dropped on a plate- YES! All in all, Aaron thinks I wouldn't get kicked off the show this week.

Coming soon: Walnut Cake